Air punched out of me. “What?”
“Give me your fucking phone!” He pounded on the steering wheel with his free hand.
He wasfurious.
I jumped back from the sudden anger. I wasn’t scared of violence, but this came out so abruptly. It was shocking. My throat went dry, and panic caked the inside of it. Slowly, going numb, I gave him my phone. “Thought Octavia was neutral?”
“Octavia is.” He took my phone and opened his door roughly. Grabbing my arm, he dragged me after him, dropping my phone and kicking it to destroy it. I fell out of the truck and landed on the ground, seeing my phone was smashed to pieces. I was distantly aware of the rough pavement underneath me, but I was wearing leggings, so there’d be no blood trail left behind.
I fell to the side. My wrist was exposed. I scraped it against the pavement, needing to leave behind something. Blood. Skin. Anything. It was evidence that couldn’t be erased so easily.
This wasn’t the first time I’d been taken, or the second, or even the third. As the other times, I began to automatically shift into who I needed to become in order to survive.
By this point, I didn’t care about the reason behind this kidnapping.
I was being taken. Period.
I was officially done being a pawn. If I survived this, I was going to declare my own war, and hell hath a fucking girl pissed off because this was the last time I was going to be taken like this.
I was shaking with fury, my blood boiling. Everything was rattling inside of me.
Spence barked at me, yanking me to my feet. “If you’re looking for your tail, don’t bother. I already took care of him.”
“Took care of him?”
His laugh was bitter. “He might be alive, if he’s found in the next few minutes. Let’s go. Enough stalling.” His fingers were going to bruise me. He didn’t seem to care. He dragged me toward one of the warehouses, his gun still trained on me.
“If Octavia is neutral then why did you take me?” I tried resisting, but he just continued to drag me, so I fell down. I didn’t care about how much I was cut up. Blood was really hard to clean. The more blood, the better trail I left behind.
He got to the door and snarled down at me. “I said Octavia is neutral. I’m not. Get the fuck up if you want to see your friends alive.” He rested the end of his gun against my forehead.
So my friends had been taken? That was one answer given.
I needed more. “If Octavia is still neutral that means you’re violating your employment. This won’t go unpunishe—”
His growl was savage as he reached down and hauled me back up. “That’s the whole point of this. Don’t you get that?”
I gulped. “What are you talking about?” But I was up and standing, though my knees were shaking so much that I was swaying back and forth.
“I am done waiting for someone to actually do something to take out your boy. West and Walden ain’t doing shit. If I need to get involved so other parties come to play, Mafia families bigger than West or Walden, so be it. No matter what, your boy’s going to be killed, and that’s all I want.”
It was the first time I was seeing Spence in daylight, and he had pulled me so close to him. He wore colored contact lenses. “Your eyes.”
He blanched as his hand tightened so hard on my arm, banging on the door. “Shut up.”
“Why would you wear colored contact lenses?”
I ran through the reasons and landed on only one that made sense. Because he had eyes that would give away something he didn’t want out there. Which meant he had eyes that would tellmesomething, eyes I knew. What did that mean though?
No eyes made a difference to me except another set of eyes I saw recently.
When I met Creighton’s cousin months ago, he had the same eyes. The same gray color.
I did a DNA test on Creighton years ago and found out he had family in Maine. His mother was Taunti Worthing, who came from the Worthing Mafia family. Creighton took over those Worthing assets. It was a hostile takeover, from what I gathered.
The door opened, and Spence shoved me inside. “Enoughtalking. Let’s get this over with.” Two big guys moved aside, making room for us. They were in business suits, and each held a handgun. The bulges underneath their coats were more guns. I knew my Mafia types by now. These guys were foot soldiers.
Spence huffed. “Are they here?”
